Menace to society

Caution: Reader discretion advised.

It is called the “down low” and, generally, here is how it works.

A man wants to have sexual relations with another man. So, on such occasions, the two wink at each other in the supermarket, during worship services or, say, at spaghetti night at their children’s school, and then decide to “hook up.” Afterward, they go back to whatever lifestyle and relationships they were engaged in. For some,that lifestyle is utterly homosexual. For too many, that lifestyle is bisexual. Either way, HIV/AIDS remains a menace to our society.

HIV/AIDS has leveraged devastatingeffects, leading our voices to cry out for more funding and more research. The Congressional Black Caucus, for instance, strongly urges more U.S. funds for battling HIV/AIDS in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. The Bush administration, mostly through Tommy Thompson’s Department of Health and Human Services, reinforces America’s commitment to HIV/AIDS research and treatment, as well as increased awareness and testing. Federal, state and local governments also work with the faith-based community (and others) to bring attention to this life-and-death issue.

That is not enough. We are too accepting. We need to air our dirty laundry, not purse our lips regarding the public-health crisis called HIV/AIDS and the unhealthy lifestyles that exacerbate the problem. HIV/AIDS doesn’t care what race, religion or gender you are, and the “down low” is not a “black thing.”

It has been a generation since the dreaded HIV/AIDS began taking our breath away. Since then it has claimed the lives of young and old, friends and enemies, relatives and celebrities, homosexuals and heterosexuals, intravenous drug users and recipients of blood transfusions. Where Americans once thought of it as afflicting mostly white homosexuals, HIV/AIDS is teaching us hard lessons about promiscuity — if, indeed, we are learning anything.

Federal statistics show that:

• An estimated 900,000 Americans are living with HIV/AIDS.

• For women of child-bearing years, those who are 25 to 44 years old, HIV/AIDS is one of the three leading causes of death.

• Black Americans comprised 51.7 percent of all estimated AIDS cases diagnosed in 2002.

As if those statistics are spooky enough, consider this. According to a report by Dr. Meg D. Newman of the University of California-San Francisco: “In 1997, approximately 41 percent of adults living with HIV/AIDS were women; by 2002 this proportion had risen to 50 percent … Every day, approximately 5,500 women are newly infected with HIV, and more than 3,000 die from AIDS-related illnesses.”

Those are the cold realities of mostly unconscionable behavior and statistics driven by the sinister lifestyle called the “down low” and something called denial. That is to say, the men on the “down low” don’t want to be labeled as gay or homosexual, or bisexual, for that matter. Many of them engage in unprotected sex — switch-hitting and preying on unsuspecting male and female partners. One such perpetrator — J.L. King, an author and popular speaker — told Oprah Winfrey recently that neither love nor respect has anything to do with his sexual preferences. It’s all about “gratification,” he said. While there are men who appreciate Mr. King’s straightforwardness, someone needs to tell him and his co-conspirators that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting the lives of so many at risk.

Where stand the feminists marching on Washington this weekend for abortion rights? Where stand members of the “gay community” on the “down low” issue? We know they fought hard against discriminatory adoption/foster care policies (and they won). They applauded Rosie O’Donnell when she came out of the closet. (I never knew she was in.) They claim same-sex “marriage” is a “civil right” and condemn politicians of all stripes who refuse to see their views through rainbow-colored lenses.

Now, you know that I know that I risk being called a homophobe for even criticizing homosexuality. I do not care. I am a big girl and have been called worse.

What I do care about are those alarming HIV/AIDS statistics that have names and faces attached to them — statistics that underscore the irony of the “civil rights” demands made by the “gay/homosexual/lesbian/transgendered/transsexualcommunity”andthe demands that such a community of people has a “civil right” to “marry.”

Marriage is not a “right.”

The women’s rights and same-sex “marriage” debates are distractions — costly legal and political distractions that draw our attention away from a life-and-death public-health crisis.

The latest trends in that crisis are menacing developments that can only be arrested by our undivided attention — regardless of race, gender, religion or lifestyle.